Charred Avocado Hand Rolls Recipe

Making sushi at home is one of the more rewarding culinary projects you can take on. Sushi is notoriously pricey and can be hard to find depending on where you live. Many grocery stores these days carry plastic trays of cold-prepared avocado and cucumber sushi, but these can leave a bit to be desired. Once you've mastered the art of making it yourself, you can whip up a fresh and tasty batch whenever the mood strikes. If the idea of handling raw fish seems a bit daunting to you, preparing a vegetable sushi recipe is a great place to start. You can take things to the next level without learning a whole new skill set by trying your hand at these easy and delicious vegetable hand rolls.

What makes this veggie sushi handroll special is that we char ripe slices of avocado to add a smoky layer of flavor. Then we marinate them in a tangy yuzu ponzu sauce for a brightness and complexity that goes well with crunchy raw micro greens and slices of crisp cucumber. "Charring the sushi and then marinating it in a flavorful sauce adds a bunch of flavor to the avocado and gives the roll a bit more depth," says recipe developer Taylor Murray. 

The key to making great sushi at home is to source the right ingredients. First, find some nori — flat sheets of dry seaweed that will form the exterior of a handroll. Next, you'll need to prep a batch of seasoned sushi rice. If you want to skip a step, you can probably pick up a side of it at your local sushi restaurant. For a vegetable handroll like this, you need some fresh produce. This particular recipe uses crisp microgreens, thinly sliced cucumber, and avocado. The cucumber should be a Persian or English cucumber, both of which have a thinner skin than familiar hothouse varieties. The avocado has to hit just the right sweet spot between ripe enough to eat, but not so ripe that it won't hold its shape during the marinating and charring. Buy a few to make sure you can find one that's ideal. Finally, this recipe calls for marinating the avocado in yuzu ponzu with dashi. Yuzu ponzu is a type of seasoned soy sauce that you can read more about below.

Remove the avocado from its skin and cut it into 8 segments.

Place the avocado on a rimmed baking sheet.

Using a blow torch, lightly char each piece of avocado. Alternatively, use a grill or grill pan to add char to the avocado halves before slicing.

Carefully place the avocado segments in a bowl with the yuzu dashi, using a spoon to coat.

Let the avocado marinate for about 10 minutes.

To assemble the rolls, place a sheet of nori shiny side down.

Scoop about ¼ cup of the rice onto the left side of the rectangle at an angle toward the bottom center of the piece.

Top the rice with 2 segments of avocado.

Add a few matchsticks of cucumber and a sprinkle of sprouts.

Fold the bottom-left corner of the nori over the filling and roll to form a cone, using a wet finger to seal the final edge.

Repeat with the remaining rolls and serve immediately.

Yuzu ponzu is a seasoned soy sauce that's combined with lemony yuzu juice, among other things. It's brighter and tangier than just pure soy sauce alone. We've also opted for a yuzu ponzu that's mixed with dashi, a type of stock that can take many forms. This adds a more foundational depth and umami flavor to the avocado, rounding out the sharp salt of the soy and tart tang of the yuzu. If you can't find yuzu ponzu with dashi, you can experiment with making your own by combining the two ingredients.

To make a simple dashi, you can use an instant mix purchased at an Asian grocery store, or you can simmer a pot from scratch. The ingredients are typically kombu, a type of dried seaweed, bonito (fish) flakes, and dried shiitake mushrooms or dried anchovies. You can make the mixture vegetarian by omitting the anchovy and bonito flakes and swapping in some roasted vegetables like squash. Once you've made the dashi, mix it with some ponzu sauce with yuzu, and you're ready to go.

Preparing sushi rice is a crucial element in making sushi at home. Start with the right rice — short-grain Japanese rice like Nishiki is a great choice. Make sure to rinse it well under cold water until all the starch in the water has disappeared. Traditionally, sushi rice also gets at least a 30-minute soak before cooking.

Cook the rice according to package directions, which is usually 1 cup of rice to 1 ¼ cups water. Combine the rice and water, bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, until cooked. Meanwhile, make a mixture of rice vinegar, salt, and sugar. Mix with the hot rice and spread on a sheet tray to cool while the rice absorbs the liquid. Let the rice cool to room temperature before using it in your recipe. Keep in mind that sushi chefs often spend years perfecting this one step in the process before learning more complex parts of the art of sushi making, so don't be too hard on yourself if yours doesn't come out perfect on the first try.